DES201-2018, Week02: Progression Design by 1701635, Charlie
Progression Design Overview "The Cursed Watch" offers multiple storylines as players take control of 12 different characters over the course of the game, each set whithin their own time period. What ties these characters' stories together is the discovery of a mysterious cursed watch that ticks backwards upon obtention. While the gameplay and goals in every level vary depending on the setting, once a character obtains the watch, they are given 60 in game minutes before their storyline ends. Whithin the time limit, players must complete missions as they see fit and/or follow branching story pathlines; the level of success determines the character's fate and how much one learns about the watch and its previous owners. At the end of every storyline the game moves on to the next level, regardless of whether or not the character fails to avoid death by the time their 60 minutes have passed. Progression is made by uncovering crucial details about the cursed watch throughout every storyline. The details and clues the player finds can be used to discover more optimal story branches in upcoming levels, and even for previous levels in second playthroughs of the game. Ultimately, the goal of the player is to gather enough information on the watch in order to understand its origin and creator. This will help succeed in the final level, which would allow the player to possibly put a stop to the problem before it even started. Progression In Level 5: The Wall Street Crash Level 5 Story Progression The player takes control of Spencer Dale, an unemployed family man who lives in a Hooverville near the port of Seattle. Desperate for a job, Spencer accepts work as a window washer from some shady employer, and has to arrive sometime in the morning to his office. Without a way to track the time, Spencer heads out to the market area in his Hooverville and finds a merchant selling a snazzy-looking watch at a relatively cheap price. Upon returning home, he realizes too late that the watch is in fact ticking backwards with no apparent way to fix this. From here, the player has the option to follow through Spencer's story as they wish: * The player has the choice to patiently wait a few minutes before heading out in time to work in the city. ** Spencer's employer is surprisingly not legitimate, hiring him to wash the windows of a building he doesn't even own to get Spencer to do spywork for him. Without the proper equipment, Spencer makes one wrong move and is sent falling to his death. * The player can instead choose to investigate more into the watch, with the original intent of getting your money back from the merchant who sold it to you in the first place. ** Doing this will set the player down a path of haggling and odd jobs in order to get the information or tools Spencer needs to progress through the story. ** If the player is able to learn enough stories about the watch's curse, Spencer is given the choice of what to do with it. *** Spencer can choose to discard the watch in an attempt to possibly spare him from the curse, ending his storyline. As he tosses it away, the screen fades to black, but the watch's ticking noises do not stop and even become slightly louder. His fate is unknown. *** Spencer can choose to spend more of his time investigating the story of the watch further, though he won't be able get to work if he does this. This path allows the player to learn more crucial details for future levels, but isn't without danger for Spencer due his employer's paranoia, who might send out people to investigate you in turn. Level 5 Gameplay The gameplay in level 5 revolves mainly around the hard times people went through during the Great Depression and the means people used to get by. To make any significant progress, Spencer will have to spend some of his limited time on doing tasks for people, or learning what would get people to talk, in order to discover the importance of the watch. Depending on how successfull the player can be within Spencer's time limit, they will in return learn more about: * How the watch's curse works * Rumours of when it was made * Rumours of who made it * Possible ways to avoid Spencer's death * Details about the previous owner, the playable character in the next level. These findings will help the player figure out how to solve possible problems in upcoming levels, as well as bring them closer to the origins and intent of the cursed watch.